


For Better and Worse

by DreamingKate



Category: Glee
Genre: Homelessness, Illness, M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 20:52:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3502388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingKate/pseuds/DreamingKate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being sick on the streets rarely ended well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Better and Worse

The snow swirled down onto his upturned face, the tiny flakes sticking to his eyelashes and melting into cold drops on his hot forehead. Blaine blinked slowly, trying to remember when the sky had lightened to a cool grey. 

“Blaine?” A high voice snapped him out of his daze and his vision was filled with blue eyes and a worried frown. 

“Hi, hey,” Blaine whispered, reaching a shaky hand up. Kurt shushed him and took his hand, quickly burrowing under their thin blanket and wrapping himself around Blaine. “Kurt?”

“I’m here,” Kurt kissed his cheek. “God, you’re burning up.” 

“Maybe I’m sick,” Blaine mumbled, a weak cough turning into a fit that completely exhausted him. He slumped back, gasping and wheezing. “Kurt, am I sick?” 

“Yes baby,” Kurt brushed his sweaty bangs away from his sweaty forehead. “You’ve been sick for almost a week now. I can’t…I can’t afford any medicine. The tourists aren’t walking by in this weather.”

“My grandma used to make me soup…chicken noodle,” a small smile lifted the corners of Blaine’s lips. “She would give me soup and crackers. Then dad got out of jail and I had to live with him again.”

“This makes you sad honey, we don’t have to talk about it.”

“No…he didn’t care if I got sick,” the last word broke off in a cough. “He didn’t care much about me at all.”

“It’s okay,” Kurt kissed his cheek as another horrible gust of wind rushed through their alley. “We found each other out here. We care for each other.”

“Hey Kurt?”

“Yeah?”

“I think…I think I’m sick,” he wheezed out and Kurt’s arms tightened. 

Blaine didn’t like the worry etched across Kurt’s face. He didn’t even know why his boyfriend was so worried anyway. Less and less tourists were tipping them for their singing and the shelters were always full but they were survivors. Why was Kurt worried now?

“You’ll be okay,” Kurt said shakily. 

“I’m sick,” Blaine sighed, blinked, and then it was night. 

His head pounded mercilessly and his chest ached with every rattling breath. Blaine choked slightly on his next breath and sagged into Kurt’s hold, shaking violently. 

“Just breathe honey,” a sob was caught in his voice. “You’ve been in and out for two days.”

“No…I just closed my eyes,” Blaine mumbled, eyes sliding closed again. “I’m tired.”

“Okay, screw this,” Kurt mumbled and hooked his hands under Blaine’s arms, pulling him to his feet. “We’re going to the hospital.”

“We can’t afford the hospital,” Blaine slurred, the only thing keeping him from toppling forward was Kurt’s strong hands. “Just let me rest. It’s a cold.”

“It’s a fever and cough,” Kurt helped him take a few steps to the sidewalk. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness for days and when you’re awake you’re delirious. We have to go.”

The walk came to Blaine in flashes. Images of cars racing by broke through the fog and he could vaguely hear Kurt talking to the security guard at the hospital before he was enveloped in warmth.

“Where are we?” He asked, his head feeling like it was floating above his shoulders. 

“The hospital darling,” Kurt whispered, thanking the nurse as she handed them paperwork. He helped Blaine sit down in a nearby chair and sniffled softly as he worked on the papers, hunched over slightly. 

“Why are you crying?” Blaine asked, trembling slightly. 

“Nothing,” Kurt gave him a tiny smile. “We’re going to get you taken care of.”

And that was the last thing Blaine remembered. 

—

When he woke up the first thing Blaine felt was warmth. 

Ever since he had run from home, broken and bleeding, he had been cold. Kurt was the only spark of warmth in the frigid city and took him under his wing. They sang together on the streets, the tourists rewarding them with change and applause. It was as good as life could get on the street and Blaine was happy. 

Then he had gotten sick. 

Blaine didn’t remember a lot of the last few weeks and his head felt cloudy as he slowly opened his eyes. The walls were painted a soft light blue and the lights above his bed were dimmed. Dazed, he turned his head to see the tubes and wires attached to him. 

“Blaine,” Kurt’s relieved face appeared in front of him and he smiled softly. “Thank God!”

“I’m in the hospital?” He croaked out, his throat sore. 

“A nasty case of pneumonia,” Kurt stroked back his hair and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “The doctors said you wouldn’t have lasted much longer on the streets. I was so, so worried.”

Tears flashed in his eyes and Blaine blinked away the tiredness, reaching a shaky hand up to cup his cheek. “You saved me.”

“I carried you to the hospital,” Kurt shrugged. “You’d be surprised how many people just walked on by.”

He closed his eyes for a moment before frowning. “We can’t afford to be here. This has to be beyond expensive.”

A strange light entered Kurt’s eyes and he dug through the pocket of his brand new pants. He pulled out a little slip of paper and handed it to Blaine, grinning widely. “This was your birthday present.”

“A lottery ticket?” Blaine said slowly, taking the crinkled paper. 

“A winning lottery ticket,” Kurt breathed. “I checked it when you were in the ER. We won, fifty million dollars.”

The haze that had been almost constant was completely lifted now. “What?”

“Yeah,” Kurt laughed, sounding bright and young. “We won! I paid off all your medical bills no problem. We can get a nice place, get our GEDs, have warm food and a roof over our heads every night, and be together. We can have a wedding Blaine.”

It sounded so much like a dream that Blaine wondered if he was still sleeping. 

“Really?” He gasped out. 

“We can have our own lives. You’re eighteen now Blaine, they can’t send you back to those monsters who hurt you,” Kurt sat on the bed next to him. “You saved me on those streets, brought me back to life. We’ve survived through hell and now it can only get better. We’ve already been through the ‘for worse’ part, we only have the ‘for better’ part left.”

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Kurt is an orphan and homeless when he meets Blaine, a kid who ran away from his abusive family and has nowhere to go. They fall in love and struggle to survive together on the streets of NYC. For Blaine’s 18th birthday, Kurt buys him a lottery ticket, as a symbol that their luck can change. But weeks later, when Blaine is very sick and Kurt is desperate to help him, he checks the ticket and finds out it has all the winner numbers and apparently, they’ve won fifty million dollars.


End file.
